The SpicyIP TV Podcast SS Edition: Ep 05 with Mr. KM Gopakumar

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Sonisha Srinivasan

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Oct 18, 2025, 1:34:09 AMOct 18

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In this 5th episode of the SpicyIP Podcast Summer School Edition, I got the opportunity to have a conversation with Mr. K.M Gopakumar, an access to medicines researcher and legal advisor. The session that he conducted on behalf of TWN gave the class a perspective of civil society and ignited keen interest in their work.

In this episode, I speak to him about the role of civil society in policy making and different ways in which students and young professionals can meaningfully contribute to civil society organisations.

Don’t miss out on the part of the conversation where he discusses the “knowledge production” function of civil society, emphasises on the importance of optimising work with limited resources and gives an example for contributing to impactful work. Tune in to hear more from him!
(Earlier episodes include: 01 with Mr. Murali Neelakantan here, 02 with Mr. Sandeep Rathod here, 03 with Mr. Adarsh Ramanujan here and 04 with Ms. Chetali Rao here.)

SpicyIP TV: The Summer School Edition – Episode 05 KM Gopakumar on Civil Society and Role of Law Students

You can view the Youtube video here: https://youtu.be/CZd9KJohdm8?si=He2_IvHw6ztDf9IK

In this episode (05), Sonisha Srinivasan speaks to Mr. KM Gopakumar, Senior Researcher and Legal Advisor at the Third World Network (TWN). Mr. Gopakumar shares insights into TWN’s working as a platform for research and advocacy on development issues, including climate change, biodiversity, and public policy. He speaks of the critical function of civil society organisations in policymaking and the generation of knowledge, the constant challenge of scarce resources, as well as the significance of voluntarism in maintaining effective work. He also talks about how students and young professionals can meaningfully contribute to civil society organisations through internships, legal research, and policy analysis.

About KM Gopakumar: KM Gopakumar is a Senior Researcher and Legal Advisor, Third World Network (TWN) based in New Delhi, India.

SS: We have a couple of questions for you sir. Could you give us a brief on what TWN does as an organization and the kind of work that you are involved in?

GK: Thank you Sonisha for having me and give this opportunity to explain about some of our work. So, the most important thing is that the TWN now is completing 40 years. And it was established in 1984. And it sort of came out from a big international conference focusing on the third world development crisis that time. So what we focus is research and advocacy around development issues. But our key focus of all these years is to enhance the negotiating capital or capacities of developing country. So the public interests and the developmental concerns of developing countries or the people in the developing countries can be reflected properly in those forums. So we work very closely with the various actors including the governments from developing countries to pursue these objectives. So we work on various areas including climate change, biodiversity, health, trade, so on and so forth including international finance.

SS: Right, that’s great. Also, with respect to policy making, civil society, like yours, what do you think is the role of civil society in policy making? How does TWN come in and go towards, navigate towards that direction of policy making?

GK: Civil society plays a major role in the policy making, especially in what the civil society organizations are bringing on the table is the information related to the real working of the policy on the ground. So you can also say that they bring a lot of knowledge related to a particular issue. So therefore the role of civil society on public policy making is very important because an academic may write a good research paper, but that may take time. And it needs a lot of efforts. Since the CSOs working on various areas, if anything related to the policy making, they can bring that info very quickly. And also relevant from a people’s perspective or a public interest perspective. So that’s a very important role they play. But of course policy making is by and large is the job of the government, but government is supposed to consult with various groups or various actors. And so therefore CSOs or civil society organizations are an important actor, which can bring what’s exactly happening with regard to that particular policy or what are its shortcomings to pursue the public interest in a particular domain. So therefore we cannot ignore CSOs and CSO’s constitute an important actor. And also plays a major role in the overall knowledge production related to that particular issues where the public policy or policy making is to take place.

SS: So when you do a lot of on-ground work, you would require resources and personnel, you know, to do the work. So how do you navigate to , do you have resources and how do you manage about with that and what do you think is necessary for you at this point of time?

GK: Yes, resources is always a constraint, but the challenge is to use that limited resources and to do the maximum work. Though the resources are limited, they can have maximum impact, I would say, or optimal use of the resources takes place because of the lot of voluntarism involved and also the cause that drives the people to work and contribute to the civil society work.

SS: So if a student wants to contribute to a civil society or if anybody else who’s interested in research and advocacy, wants to contribute to TWN or any civil society, do you have any suggestions or guidance for them and how would they be able to do work with you?

GK: And definitely because as I always say that within this civil society work, resource might be less, but the work, there is no dearth of work. So there are a lot of opportunities. The students can contribute in various ways. They can initially undertake internships or they can volunteer with that organization to do much more work. And also as part of their academics, also some of those issues can be taken up as a research, even for a say, term paper or a larger assignment or much more bigger writing and getting it published.

SS: And these would be things which are relevant right now, which would actually make a difference to students when they take up such things

GK: Exactly. So if you look at the legal research many times, the students are tempted to just take cases, already decided judgements and analyze it, etc. without looking at what’s happening on the ground. So working with the Civil Society or to identify the cause where various Civil Society Organizations are working they can take it up, and to do further research and even contribute that research even to the Civil Society Organization’s work. So there are immense scope, but I would say that volunteerism is very important. So that drives the work.

SS: Could you give an example of anything say you’re working on and on how students could contribute to that? Could you give an example of any topic that you would probably be working on right now and explain on how relevant it is at this point of time and how if students contribute to that, how relevant it would be for them?

GK: So definitely there are various, even on let’s take the example of decisions of the court on patent related matters. So there are various judgements. Some of the judgements are good in the implementation of the Patents Act, reflecting the legislative intent, but there are certain judgements which basically, not reflecting the real spirit behind those provisions. So take, compile all those judgements and put an analysis. Even a single judgement analysis also contribute to the advancing the cause of public interest in the context of Patent Law. So this is one example I can give you.

SS: Thank you. Thank you so much sir. I’m sure your words would definitely make a difference to students and I’m pretty sure they know right now the importance. Because maybe before there were not a lot of people were not aware of the kind of work that is done and now that your words really made a difference, I’m sure students would contribute and see how we could make a change. So thank you so much for being here today. It was a pleasure talking to you.